52 pages • 1 hour read
Things You Save in a Fire
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Themes
The Courage to Forgive
The relationship between courage and forgiveness is arguably the central focus of Things You Save in a Fire. At the beginning of the novel, Cassie has little reason to doubt her courage. She faces danger every day in her job, and she has survived through the major traumas of her 16th birthday. However, she struggles with forgiveness and must learn throughout the novel that forgiveness requires courage and that both can come in many forms. Cassie believes that her greatest strength as a firefighter is her ability to remain calm in crisis, something that requires natural talent as well as courage. Her courage never wavers in the face of physical danger, but she panics at key moments when facing difficult emotions, particularly when she thinks she is about to lose Diana and Owen. The kind of courage she uses to put out fires and save the lives of strangers fails her when she experiences immediate personal crises. Diana, who has already gone through the process of forgiving herself for her past decisions, demonstrates a different kind of courage—accepting her fate while still fighting for her life. When Cassie accuses her of quitting because she won’t try an experimental drug, Diana calmly asserts that “[she is] fighting. In [her] own way” (348). Center shows other characters displaying other forms of courage throughout the novel as well, such as Owen finding the courage to tell his father what happened in the Boston Paper Company Fire or the captain and crew being brave enough to apologize for not believing Cassie.
Near the end of the novel, Cassie clearly defines her most courageous act as one that has nothing to do with physical danger: After telling her story to DeStasio, she says, “Of all the brave things I’d done in my life, that one was the bravest” (466). Telling her story requires a different kind of courage than the kind she typically faces on the job, yet it also allows Cassie to do what she has been struggling to do for 10 years: forgive herself. After telling her story to DeStasio, not only does she forgive the man that has been tormenting her, but she also forgives her adult self for not treating her 16-year-old self with compassion. Forgiveness is an idea pushed heavily by Diana throughout the novel, who insists early on that Cassie forgive her so that she can let go of the anger she has been carrying for 10 years. Cassie makes clear that her forgiveness of DeStasio is not for his benefit, but for her own. She is able to let go of the anger she has toward him, just as she lets go of the anger she has toward everyone else by the epilogue. Just as it takes courage to forgive, forgiveness gives Cassie courage as well, as she is able to tell her story and move on from the darkest part of her life once she forgives herself and those around her. Yet both forgiveness and courage are also inextricably linked to another feeling Cassie discovers throughout the novel: love. Diana claims that “love makes you stronger” (401), and it is Cassie’s love for Diana and Owen and even herself that makes her brave enough to tell her story and to forgive herself for not having told it earlier.
Action Versus Intent
Cassie has a very strong sense of right and wrong, which does not waver throughout Things You Save in a Fire. Her moral judgment centers not on people’s actions but on her assessment of the character and intent underlying those actions. She describes firefighting as “a helping profession” that “people get into […] because they want to help others” (280). For Cassie, all firefighters must be intrinsically good by virtue of having chosen the profession, and the notion that a firefighter she knows might be stalking her makes her wonder, “If firefighters weren’t the good guys, then maybe there just weren’t any left” (280). Though DeStasio’s actions scare Cassie, it is the malicious intent behind those actions that worries her more, as it makes her question her entire view of who can be trusted to be helpful.
However, because she believes firefighters inherently have good intentions, many of the other questionable things her co-workers do to her do not phase her nearly as much. Cassie finds it hard to believe Captain Harris when she tells her about the rampant sexism in other departments, and when she experiences it in Lillian, she sees the crew’s attitudes as misguided rather than overtly misogynistic or malicious. She also makes it clear that pranks are a major part of establishing bonds with the other firefighters and lightening the mood in an otherwise gloomy job, and she even participates in and initiates many herself. These pranks—which include hosing the rookie down with the heavy-duty firehose and leaving him and Cassie stranded on a rooftop without any assistance—do not upset Cassie, as she knows that the firefighters mean well, even when their actions sometimes go too far.
Cassie can forgive even malicious or genuinely harmful actions when she learns the intentions behind them. DeStasio’s rash decision to rush into a burning building almost costs Owen his life, and his decision to blame Cassie for it almost ends her career, but she feels much more sympathy for him when she learns that he thought he saw his son in the burning building. After hearing his side of the story, she also understands why he feared that her presence at the station would change things for him—even though she rejects his logic. Perhaps most significantly, her feelings toward Diana change once she learns more about why her mother left and why she wanted Cassie to live with her. Though Cassie never concedes that Diana’s abandonment of her was a good thing, understanding the intentions behind the action makes her recognize that Diana is not a bad person and allows Cassie to forgive her and ask for her forgiveness in turn.
The Influence of Expectations
When Cassie realizes that Owen is the only male firefighter who laughs at her jokes, she says, “It left me thinking a lot about how much what you think you’re going to think matters. If you expect something to be funny, it will seem funnier. And if it seems funnier, it is funnier—by definition” (159). As she tries to decipher exactly why she is treated so badly by the men on her shift even when she has proven herself time and again, she realizes just how much they are influenced by what they thought a woman could or could not do, specifically in a male-dominated profession. These expectations influence the crew so much that they think she is a stripper when they first meet her—wearing a typical firefighter uniform—because their expectations about what a firefighter is will not allow them to concede that a woman can be one. Though Cassie does not have the same expectations, she still recognizes them when she describes the rookie as looking like a firefighter, saying, “Everything about his tall, broad, earnest demeanor shouted ‘helper.’ He looked the part” (137). Cassie feels that, due to this typical image of what a firefighter is, “he fit[s] in better than [she] [does]” (137). Even though she has much more experience, she knows the other men exclude her for this same reason—because she doesn’t look like their stereotypical image of a firefighter. Though she eventually convinces her crew that she is a capable firefighter, their expectations influence them so much that they can hardly see her as a firefighter at all in the beginning.
Cassie keeps fighting against the misogynistic blows she is dealt, as she too harbors a strict expectation of what a firefighter is: “a good guy” (280). This influences her in other ways as well. Initially, for example, she discounts the possibility that her stalker could be a member of the crew since firefighters are “good guys” and thus could never act maliciously as her stalker does. Her expectations about other people also influence her decision-making greatly, even when it is unjustified and especially when it comes to Diana. Cassie is at first firm in her refusal to have a friendly relationship with Diana because she expects that Diana has not recognized how cruel her past actions toward her were. She is cold toward her at first, but especially after she learns of Diana’s diagnosis, she recognizes just how much anger she harbored toward her. Her negative expectations about Diana’s intentions robbed her of time with her mother. Similarly, Cassie’s negative expectations about love prevent her from believing in or even pursuing it until she meets the rookie. Expectations and preconceived notions influence how Cassie and other characters interact, shaping the plot while illustrating how important it is to get to know people before making judgments.
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By Katherine Center
